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Everybody's Favorite

Tales from the World's Worst Perfectionist

Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
1 of 2 copies available

"Many have tried, and many will try, to capture the sweet, innocent insanity of life as a young girl during the '90s and 2000s. None have come close to the comedic perfection Lillian Stone nails again and again in Everybody's Favorite." —Glamour, Best Nonfiction Books of 2023

From one of the Internet's favorite self-deprecating commentators comes Everybody's Favorite, a laugh-out-loud essay collection that tackles the relentless pursuit of perfection while navigating growing up in the early 2000s.

Lillian Stone—childhood evangelical, AOL girlfriend, and professional nail biter is always living on the edge of anxiety. From the pitfalls of a girl plagued by religious trauma, the incomprehensible yet unforgiving need for perfection, and a poorly-behaved twenty-pound beagle, Everybody's Favorite is a refreshing story of what it means to pick yourself when the world is telling you otherwise. Still navigating the ins and outs of adulthood, accompanied by an obsessive-compulsive disorder that's become an exercise in self-acceptance and thus compassion, Lillian has become an expert in fighting the urge to be someone else's idea of perfect. In this laugh-out-loud essay collection, replete with cringe-inducing touchstones of an early-aughts girlhood, Lillian Stone recounts her quest to be everybody's favorite.

Set largely during the early 2000s Ozarks, and peppered with Stone's biting satire and gloriously self-deprecating personal anecdotes, Everybody's Favorite is a wry, empathetic look at the chaos that ensues when we contort ourselves into an ever-changing assortment of socially acceptable shapes —only to fall out of place, twist an ankle, pee your pants a little, and realize that the pursuit of perfection isn't really all that interesting.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from May 8, 2023
      Morning Brew contributor Stone debuts with a witty collection of essays about growing up a perfectionist in the thinness-obsessed, tabloid-crazed 2000s and beyond. She charts her long struggle with body image, from being labeled a “seventeen-minute miler” in elementary school gym class and garnering praise for shedding “baby weight” in high school to eating issues that lingered into her 20s and the measure of bodily acceptance she eventually found through weight lifting. Elsewhere, she recalls growing up in a repressive evangelical home and struggling to reconcile how she could “be pure of heart when my brain was on twenty-four-hour taboo cinema mode,” bombarded by doubts about God’s existence and “major, major pervert” thoughts. Stone’s at her best when probing the psychological complexities of young womanhood, as when she details her college-age efforts to be a “cool” girl to attract men, including a blueberry vodka–swilling “upperclassman with a long Eastern European last name, a wry smile, and a tiny, tiny butt.” Stone’s painfully sharp observations will draw readers in, and her honesty will keep them enthralled. This will go a long way toward helping readers feel less alone.

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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